It is indispensable to keep watching rapid developments of the high-tech industry worldwide.

Friday, October 7, 2011

No. 323: Infrastructure technology to charge an EV battery in a few minutes (October 7, 2011)

Nissan Motor and Kansai University professor Masashi Ishikawa jointly developed a technology to charge an EV
battery in a few minutes. The research team elaborated the material of the capacitor
to reduce the charging time to a few minutes. The new technology is designed
for an EV with a travel distance of several kilometers per charge. The research
team used an oxide composite made of tungsten and vanadium in place of carbon for
the electrode of a capacitor. Needles of several tens of micrometers in
diameter and several millimeters long cover the surface of an electrode. This
structure made it possible to increase the capacity and reduce electric
resistance.

In the basic experiment to confirm the
performance, the research team charged a battery in less than 10 minutes, while
maintaining the same level of capacity and voltage of a lithium-ion battery. Repetitive
use hardly deteriorated the battery. Because it is theoretically possible to
finish charging in three minutes, the research team will try harder to elaborate
the material and structure. An EV lithium-ion battery has a large capacity, but
it usually takes eight hours to charge it. The research team has opened up a
road to a new battery that has both the characteristics of a battery to store high
volume electricity and those of a capacitor that allows for quick charge.